Just finished, Sept. 18th, 2010.
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Well, it is time to organize -- or re-organize -- Hegel's Hotel again.
I am not happy with the cluttered mess that I am looking at -- Hegel's Hotel is full of 'hoarded' essays, essentially unclassified, and largely inaccessible in its deepest archives of essays written months or now years ago.
I have to find a way for you -- my potential readers -- to access the particular subject matter that you may be looking for....whether you be interested in philosophy, psychology, politics, law, equal rights, economics, the arts, religion, mythology...and at the level of sophistication and academic thoroughness that you are also looking for whether it be at an introductory, general level, or at a more advanced academic level, complete hopefully with some DGB 'cutting edge', evolving 21st century dialectic-democratic, enlightenment-romantic, constructive-deconstructive, modern-post-modern, structural-process, humanistic-existential philosophy and pychology that will take us to places that past schools of philosophy and psychology have not quite taken us before...
Man is full of internal contradictions.
And greater or lesser hypocrisies too depending on the state of our awareness of our internal contradictions...and our willingness to admit and accept them within ourselves, as well as in our social environment...
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"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."
--From Hamlet (III, ii, 239)
[Jump to the quote in the text of the play]
Queen Gertrude speaks these famous words to her son, Prince Hamlet, while watching a play at court. Gertrude does not realize that Hamlet has staged this play to trap her and her new husband, King Claudius, whom Hamlet suspects of having murdered his father. She also does not realize that the lady who "doth protest too much" is actually herself, as the Player King and Queen represent King Hamlet and Queen Gertrude. The former will be poisoned (in this play within the play) by the king's brother, as in reality (Hamlet suspects) Claudius killed King Hamlet. Gertrude's statement is in response to the play-Queen's repetitive statements of loyalty to and love of her first husband.
Source(s):
http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes…
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First -- in Western history and evolution as far as we can trace it back, or choose to usually take it back -- there was 'Greek mythology' and 'polytheism' (the belief in many Gods, and the 'dialectic interaction' not only between Gods and Gods, but also between Gods and humans, in the sky and on earth...)
Then came the arrival of the first Greek philosophers -- Thales, Anaxamander, Anaxamenes, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Protagoras, Pythagoras -- and their first attempts at 'explaining the beginning and the source of all life through 'natural' as opposed to 'theological' or 'mythological' causes... The 'one natural cause started all life' philosophers we can call 'monists' as opposed to the 'dualists' ( who believe(d) that life arose through the 'competing of opposing forces doing battle with each other and creating evolutionary energy' such as Anaxamander who was the first real evolutionary thinker, a monist, a dualist, and the first dialectic philospher all rolled into one...Thales preceded Anaxamander but Anaxamander created a much more sophisticated school of dialectic philosophy that still passes the test of time today, if in a primitive form, and indeed, can be viewed as a precursor, and a prognostication of the work of the most famous dialectic philosopher of all -- G.W. Hegel -- who wrote arguably the most important work in the history and evolution of Western Philosophy, i.e., 'The Phenomenology of Spirit', finished and published in 1807). The work of both Anaxamander and Hegel can be compared and contrasted with the work of another hugely evolutionary and revolutionary theorist and philosopher -- Charles Darwin -- whose most famous work, The Origin of The Species, 1859, post-dated Hegel's work by 52 years, and Anaxamander's work by about 2400 years.
Monists can also be distinguished from 'monotheists' who believe in one God as the cause and source of all life.
Most of the earliest monists -- Thales (water), Anaxamenes (air), Heraclitus (fire) -- shared this common goal: they each were searching for the 'lowest common denominator in the form of a physical or material substance that could be viewed as the starting point of all life'.
As a monist, Anaxamander broke the prototype: he was looking for the 'highest common denominator' of all life which he called 'The Apeiron' -- translatable as the 'The Boundless' or 'The Limitless' which almost sounds like our present conception of 'The Universe'.
From Anaxamander's concept of The Apeiron or Limitless, he then turns into the first Western dialectic philosopher, not totally unlike Lao Tse around the same time in China, although Lao Tse's philosophy was probably closer to Heraclitus's philosophy of 'opposites needing their polar half to create balance in the universe' -- which in China developed into the philosophy of Daoism and the philosophy of 'yin' (feminine qualities in the universe) and 'yang' (masculine qualities in the universe) needing each other for 'harmonious-homeostatic-dialectic-democratic balance' in the universe'.
Anaxamander was distinguishable from both Heraclitus (who was likely influenced by the philosophy of Anaxamander) and Lao Tse because Anaxamander's brand of dialectic philosophy was more of a 'conflict and will to power' dialectic philosophy.
The stronger opposite would conquer the weaker opposite with the stronger opposite taking 'centre stage' in life's ongoing, evolving psycho-drama while the 'weaker opposite' retreats to the 'Shadows' of The Apeiron, The Boundless, The Limitless, The Universe...as opposed to the 'limelight' or 'centre stage' of life..the two together -- in Jung's much, much later psychological terminology -- the 'Personna' dominating the Shadow but only in appearance and for certain lengths of time before The Shadow regains the strength and power to over-run The Personna and leave it reeling in the 'Anarchy of the Shadow' -- the two of them alternating strength and weakness, visable and invisible or overt and covert power and , and the two of them together comprising the 'Full Dialectic-Wholistic Gestalt of Life' where opposing tensions and contradictions create the energy necessary for all ongoing re-creation, reproduction, mutation, modification, diversity, and evolution...not to mention strife and war...which as much as love, desire, attraction and sex is the other half of this powerful 'multi-dialectic-evolutionary' equation...
Permit me for just having taken the liberty of converting the ancient wisdom and philosophy of Anaxamander into what would over 2000 years later evolve into the different dialectic philosophies of Schelling, Hegel, Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Perls...and many others...
Describing this 2500 year plus 'Multi-Dialectic and Wholistic Evolutionary Odyssey' in more concrete detail is much of what Hegel's Hotel is all about....
Hegel created the dialectic platform and paradigm for this type of historical evolutionary investigation and analysis and I am running with it...building a modern metaphorical, 21st century modern and post-modern, humanistic-existential, constructive-deconstructive, structural-process, evolving monument in Hegel's name in the form of 'Hegel's Hotel'...
One of the central internal contadictions in man's personality that I will be focusing on is the contradiction between the 'will to greed and power over people' (i.e., 'personal and political and corporate narcissism') versus the 'will to care about, co-operate with, and negotiate with, people in the spirit of a win-win formula' (a generally healthier, 'will to dialectically, democratically, and homeostatically balance between narcissism and altruism' -- i.e., the the dialectic-democratic-homeostatic bridge between narcissism and altruism, or worded otherwise, 'ethics').
Building a 21st century metaphorical monument and 'hotel' in Hegel's name -- this is the very, very large subject domain, and the visionary idealistic and realistic goal of Hegel's Hotel...
Call me a 'Post-Hegelian, and Post-German, Idealist' if you will...
With undercurrents of Greek Pre-Socratic Philosophy...
Spinozian Pantheism...
Locke's Rational-Epiricism, and Liberal Religious-Political Philosophy...
The British, French, and American Enlightenment Philosophy...
Schopenhauer's Irrationalism...
German Romanticism...
Adam Smith and Karl Marx's 'Polar Economic Humanism'...
Kierkegaard's, Nietzche's, and Sartre's Humanistic-Existentialism...
Wittgenstein's and Korzybski's 'Structural Representation' Linguistic-Semantic Philosophy...
Foucault's and Derrida's 'Power Philosophy' and 'Deconstruction Philosophy' respectively...
Eric Fromm's and Ayn Rand's 'Polar Economic-Political Philosophy'....
Freud, Adler, Jung, Berne, and Perls...
All playing major roles in this evolving human historical-evolutionary psycho-philosophical drama...
Please join me if this interests you, if you have not already...
And I am open to feedback and 'complimetary and/or counter-essays' at any time...
There is a point at which I would like to cease being the sole contributor to Hegel's Hotel...other than my dad's poetry and one or two essay or email contributions here and there...
I would like Hegel's Hotel to become more 'dialectically interactive and debative' in a way that presents more than my own perspective...
How many leaders proclaim to be democratic...and yet rule as 'Tight, Anal-Retentive, Control Freaks'....with no democratic transparency...a word that seems to be much more popular in political campaigns than in the actual supposedly 'democratic' running of a country...
Are you listening, Prime Minister Harper?
And all you members of parliament who don't want your 'expense accounts' to be 'transparent' to the public?
Politically, I am a Liberal-Conservative or a Conservative-Liberal...with some socialist-NDP streaks running through my blood...
Economically, I was raised as a Capitalist. My father owned his own small business of about 30 or 40 employees. He introduced me to 'The Fountainhead'.
But I was influenced by Erich Fromm also who wrote about the negative side of Capitalism...the work alienation, the 'marketing orientation' where the value of a product or a person becomes equated with its monetary value...even our own self-esteem...the herd mentality as everyone learns the 'corporate line' and the 'corporate mentality'...the loss of self-identity to the extent that our skills and talents are suppressed and vanquished in favor of the corporate needs of the most mundane jobs that require an endless repetition of the same tasks over and over again...some jobs and/or careers are obviously better than others in this regard depending on their nature and the degree of creativity, freedom, and flexibility allowed and/or needed by them...
Politically -- as well as corporately -- I am both an idealist and a cynic depending on whether we are talking about good companies or bad ones, or the gap between corporate possiblities and corporate actualities...which is often the gap between Ethical, Dialectical-Humanistic-Existential Capitalism
on the one hand vs. Narcissistic, Unethical Capitalism on the other hand...
I can, have, and will continue to, rage against the destructive components of Unethical, Narcissistic Capitalism...although I will save you from one of my rants today...
While at the same time, supporting the more idealistic Capitalist visions of Adam Smith and Ayn Rand, and also weigh in with the 'counter-Capitalist-arguments' of Karl Marx and Erich Fromm...
That's the Hegel's Hotel agenda...
And the evolving psycho-philosophical-socio-economic drama...that is woven into Hegel's Hotel...
There are already a good 500 essays that are a major part of Hegel's Hotel...
Providing Hegel's Hotel with its philosophical and psychological foundation...
All I need to do is better organize these essays so that they are easier to access, for your potential reading interest...
And then keep building Hegel's Hotel...
Higher....
While keeping the story line of my essays...
Philosophically, psychologically, and personally...
Meaningful....and contactful...
It is imperative for me that I keep my essays alive and engaging...
On this note,
For all of you newcomers,
Welcome to Hegel's Hotel!
-- dgb, Sept. 18th, 2010
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Evolutionary Progress...
